From Publishers Weekly
Haddix (Running Out of Time) offers a tough-edged if familiar story of a beleaguered high school girl who confides the difficulties of her life to a journal in an assignment for English class; the title refers to the label the heroine gives every entry so that her teacher, the true-to-her-word Mrs. Dunphrey, will only look at the completed writing and not actually read the sensitive contents. With an abusive and mostly absentee father, a depressed mother, and only a part-time job at Burger Boy to pay for her food and clothes?as well as for her little brother Matthew's?Tish Bonner seems headed for a crisis. At her lowest point, penniless and starving after her mother's abandonment and after she is fired by a manager whose sexual advances she has refused, Tish shoplifts from a grocery store to feed herself and Matthew?and then faces being evicted from her home. Because the journal is the sole outlet for Tish's inner turmoil, the tone here shifts only in terms of varying shades of anger. Meanwhile, Mrs. Dunphrey, a model of teacherly concern, writes brief comments to express her appreciation of Tish's lengthy entries and to ask Tish to let her read some of them. YA readers will be not in the least surprised that Tish finally turns over her entire journal for Mrs. Dunphrey's perusal as a way of getting help, and that Mrs. Dunphrey comes through in the best sensitive-English-teacher tradition. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up?Sixteen-year-old Tish Bonner is a nonachieving, back-row student in Mrs. Dunphrey's English class as well as in all of her other classes. Her personal life reveals the same bleakness. Her parents' relationship is combative and unstable. Her father splits every time things get difficult. Her mother can't get her act together and takes off to look for her husband, leaving her two children alone with no money. Tish describes her plight in a journal that Mrs. Dunphrey has all of the class do as a writing assignment, with the promise that she will not read the entries if the students ask her not to. Most of what Tish writes is off-limits to her teacher until her situation becomes so desperate that her journal entries become a cry for help. This contemporary story realistically depicts the sad home life of a dysfunctional family and the burden put on young people to cope with adult problems. Tish's journal entries have an authentic ring in phrasing and tone and will keep readers involved. Although the teacher's solution of having Tish and her younger brother to stay with her temporarily may be a stretch, the resolution provides this teen with a well-deserved break since she has struggled so hard to help herself and her brother. A brief, serious look at a young person who is isolated and faced with some seemingly overwhelming problems.?Carol Schene, Taunton Public Schools, MA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
de Margaret Peterson Haddix
de Margaret Peterson Haddix
